considered more attentively by a learned friend, for whose judgment and erudition I have the highest respect, I shall offer his sentiments to the Reader in his own words. "You have a quotation from Maximus's "Preface to Horapollo, to shew there were three "sorts of writing among the Egyptians. Above "twenty years ago I had a particular occasion to "search into the truth of this assertion, and could "find no grounds for it, though it is asserted by "Diodorus Siculus, Lib. iii. and by Clemens Alexandrinus, Lib. v. p. 555. Edit. Paris. 1629. The Inscriptions on the Tables of Isis, the Obelisks, " and the breasts of the Mommies, are all in Hiero'glyphics, and we have no footsteps of any other "sort of writing, till after the times of Alexander "the Great, when the Greek Alphabet was first in"troduced under the Ptolemies, from whence it is "supposed the Coptic took its rise. I know not the "age of Maximus, but should think him to be far "later than Diodorus Siculus, who is himself by no means ancient enough to attest a fact at least 500 years older than himself, without some concurrent " evidence. There is not the least scrap of any hie. "ratic writing remaining in any old Author. The inscriptions on the Obelisks given us by Tacitus (Annal. 1. ii. p. 42. edit. fol. Basil. 1519.) and by "Ammianus Marcellinus (l. xvii. p. 145. edit. Gryph. 1552.) shew the Hieroglyphic to have been the "common Character of the country before they had an Alphabet; for it is not likely they would have "chosen to have locked up the praises of a vain glc"rious King in Mystic figures known only to a few, "when the visible design of those very magnificent "monuments was to display the honour of their Kings and the Glory of their Country. Marcel

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"linus judiciously calls these symbolic figures the beginning of knowledge. Formarum autem innumeras "notas, Hieroglyphicas appellatas, quas ei undique vi

demus, incisas initialis sapientiæ vetus insignivit au"toritas. We have no good authority to introduce "another sort of writing among the Egyptians but "the Hieroglyphic and the Greek. Had there been "a third, certainly some footsteps would have re"mained besides the ipse dixit of Diodorus, from "whom it is probable Clemens and Maximus bor"rowed it."

Maximus is a modern Greek writer. He calls himself bishop of Cythera, an island between Candy and the Morea, now called Cerigo. There is a second Letter from him addressed to the person of Hoeschelius the Editor of Horapollo, and it is dated, as his Preface is, in the year 1595. His account is therefore of no value, but for the remarks intermixt with it.

V. My subject led me naturally at p. 159, to reflect on the moral use of the Animals in the Fables of Esop and that again hath since led me to enquire after the original of those fables. But the dissention among authors is so great concerning this matter, that nothing certain can be determined. Quintilian ascribes them to Hesiod as the first author; Phædrus speaks of Esopus Auctor. As to the conjecture of Sale, translator of the Koran, and Bayle, that they are to be ascribed to Lokman, an eastern fabulist, and that there was no such person as Esop, it is of little credit. Fabricius in his Bibliotheca Græca, an author of good repute, does indeed express a doubt whether the Fables under the name of Æsop were written by him. Upon the whole it seems most probable, that Planudes was the compiler, and that the Collection is miscel'laneous, the greater part of them having Æsop for

their author. The matter of them shews that they were not all of the same age or country. The fable of the Fox and the Grapes must be Oriental, because it is not known that any European foxes eat grapes; though it hath always been observed of the foxes of Palestine. Having occasion lately to mention this circumstance, I was informed on the authority of a gentleman of Observation, who has spent some years abroad, that the dogs in the Madeiras are all confined under a very severe penalty upon the owners during the season when the vineyards are in fruit, because they devour the grapes: which is, to me at least, a new article of Natural History.

VI. I ought to make some Apology for having derived the name of Nimrod, p. 128, from a word which signifies a Leopard. The learned Mr. Bryant, in some part of his work, supposes it to come from to rebel; and another Gentleman, who has a critical knowledge of the Hebrew, has objected to my Etymology, being of the same opinion with Mr. Bryant. I must confess also that the Lexicons are against me. What I have to answer is this; that the word, if interpreted a rebel, is not grammatical: it should then

If it is taken in the sense I .מריך or מורד have been

plead for, it must be deemed a quadriliteral word, and as such compounded of a double radix. If the latter root begins with the consonant which terminates the first root, it is the custom of the language to drop one of them, and leave four letters instead of five. By this rule, the two roots are a leopard, and or to domineer: of which senses both are equally pertinent when applied to the Character of Nimrod.